From an Angry Reader:

POTUS has been involved in more demonstrable falsehoods than any President since Nixon

He undermines the warnings that President Regan gave us on Russia

How dare you compare him to Reagan and his foreign policy, Trump is a clueless neophyte.

He attempted to delegitimize our Intelligence agencies when they reported that Russia attempted to influence the election in his favor , and called them Nazis

He accused his predecessor of a criminal act and previously of not being born in the US with no evidence

It appears that he obstructed justice , we shall find out . At worst he sold out his country.

We who watched him in the NY area for decades know he is a con man , a cheat, and a lawbreaker as well as a womanizer.

Everyone is against him ? Why do you think that is? Does a true leader heighten the divisions in our country or attempt to unite all of us?

Regime change? The Constitution provides for just that contingency.

I regret that we could not have McCain for President.

I regret that so called Evangelicals supported this morally bankrupt person for President.

I regret that so called Conservatives carry water for this fake in exchange for a Supreme Court Justice , at any cost.

Shame on you sir

Sincerely

J. Dubniczki

Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply:

Dear J. Dubniczki,

Please calm down and take a breath! Life is far too short to scream it away.

Neither you nor I know whether Trump “has been involved in more demonstrable falsehoods since Nixon.” Have you calibrated and collated them? Obama was forced to admit that his once truthful memoir was largely an impressionistic myth. Do you remember “if you like your doctor, you can…,” etc.? And the commentaries of those such as Ben Rhodes and Jonathan Gruber who chuckled about the endemic deceptions they engaged in?

How has Trump undermined Regan (sic)? Aside from the fact that the Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union, and aside from the additional fact Reagan once proposed de facto a negotiated nuclear disarmament with the Soviets, what evidence do you have that Trump is pro-Russian in deed? Did he dismantle missile defense in eastern Europe, or snooze while Crimea was swallowed up, or do nothing after Russian cyber-attacks, or lecture Romney about his anti-Russian obsessions, or promise to be “flexible” with Putin if he would cool it during the election? Again, please cite an example. Did Trump lift sanctions against the Russians? Did he slash our defense budget? Did he ignore the threat of North Korea?

Also, please produce the Trump quote on the “Nazis.” Again, what you assert is pure emotion and not reasoned analysis. Intelligence agencies likely spied illegally on Americans, unmasked identities, and leaked them to the press—all that predated Trump. Collusion charges are being investigated; the head of the National Intelligence Agency and CIA have both admitted they saw no evidence of Russian-Trump collusion. We await the verdict of Mr. Mueller.

Of course, Trump is crude and uncouth; I wrote extensively about these character flaws during the nomination process, including his wacky birthism. But that conspiracy theory in part was fueled by Obama himself, who, for example, stated on his own book bio promo jacket that he was born in Kenya, not because he was, but because it sounded multiculturally hip and useful in selling his two-cultures fabulist memoir—in the fashion that Barry Soetero did not resonate like Barack Obama. Trump humiliated himself in taking the bait and conflating Obama’s manufactured sense of identity with some sort of proof that he was Kenyan.

Once an imperfect Trump was the only alternative to a more imperfect Hillary Clinton, a 51% conservative agenda was preferable to a radically progressive one. Ninety-two percent of Republicans tended to agree and knew Trump was a flawed messenger for an otherwise welcomed message on many issues.

It is quite shameful to say “he sold out his country” when no investigation has found, after 6 months of intensive research, any evidence that Trump did so, and certainly not on the scale of the Clintons, who in tandem green-lighted a vast sale of 20% of North American uranium to Russian fronts for donations to the Clinton Foundation and Bill’s lucrative speaking fees. Are you aware of that dubious behavior?

“Everyone is against” him is the sort of groupthink boilerplate that characterizes your entire puerile vent. “Regime change” does not refer to constitutional remedies for high crimes and misdemeanors but in popular parlance denotes forced overthrow of a leader, in the fashion of Madonna’s “blow up the White House” reference or the various tropes of assassination/beheading chic we see in the popular media.

I do not end with “shame on you, sir,” but rather feel for you, given you have become enslaved to your emotions and hate. Embitterment is a poor remedy for the tragedies that we all deal with in an imperfect world. I sincerely hope you find a cure for your malady, though it won’t be found in transferring your general frustrations to the election of Donald Trump.

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About Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture.

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; his focus is classics and military history.

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